Page 6

Torrance_061115_FNL_Lorez

Page 6 June 11, 2015 TORRANCE TRIBUNE Home. Cooked. GOODNESS. ORDER NOW & SAVE 69% Plus get 4 more burgers FREE PERFECT FOR FATHER’S DAY! The Favorite Gift 2 (5 oz.) Filet Mignons 2 (5 oz.) Top Sirloins 4 (4 oz.) Boneless Pork Chops 4 (4 oz.) Omaha Steaks Burgers 4 Stuffed Baked Potatoes 4 Caramel Apple Tartlets 49377GSN | Reg. $164.00 Now Only $4999 1-800-680-1807 ask for 49377GSN www.OmahaSteaks.com/mbdad35 Limit 2 pkgs. Your 4 free burgers will be sent to each shipping address that includes The Favorite Gift 49377. Limit of 1 free box of 4 (4 oz.) Omaha Steaks Burgers per shipment. Standard S&H will be added per address. Not valid with other o— ers. Expires 6/30/15. ©2015 OCG | 505B120 | Omaha Steaks, Inc. “Now it’s time for some perspective. American Pharoah won the race by 5 1/2 lengths. That’s the fourth-largest margin of victory by a horse that has completed the Triple Crown bid.” Harry’s & McCoy’s Moving Family Owned & Operated for 66 Years Time starts at your door Free use of boxes & wardrobes Short notice moves Home-Office-Apartments Local and Long Distance Licensed & Insured – CAL-T-160-989 Jerry Cohen, CEO with his granddaughter Moving handled with patience and kindness! Free Estimates 310.329.3493 Spartans Soar Into Championship Game By Adam Serrao The South High Spartans finally got the chance that they had been waiting for. After a long one-year wait, head coach Grady Sain did what no one thought that he and his team could do. With a 4-1 victory over Sunny Hills last Tuesday afternoon at South High School, Sain and the Spartans made it back to their second consecutive championship game. Getting to the big game two years in a row is no easy task. It takes a talented team full of athletes who not only love the game, but also know how to play it. The joy of advancing to the CIF Southern Section Division 4 final for the second time in as many years was certainly undeniable, but the pain that followed for South and Sain is becoming all too recognizable. Coach Sain had a plan from the very beginning. He wanted to get the most out of pitcher Nick Beardsley in the semifinal game so that he would have his ace, Drake Pingel, ready to go for the final. Luckily for Sain, looking ahead didn’t come back to bite him in the semifinal matchup against Sunny Hills. It was South’s early offense that proved to save the day. From the moment the game started, it was evident how motivated the Spartans were. In the first inning alone, the team supplied Beardsley and their coach with a three run cushion. Kawika Hubbell walked, Taylor Carmona tripled him home, Dylan Plunkett singled home Carmona, and Matt Diederich finished things off with an RBI of his own. “It’s hard to take momentum away from you when the offense and defense keep making plays,” Carmona said. He was right. The offense did their part, so now it was up to the defense to do theirs. Beardsley pitched a superb game, but ran into his fair share of trouble along the way. With two outs in the fifth inning, Beardsley was attempting to protect his team’s 4-1 lead, but faced runners on at second and third base. It was center fielder JB Guyton that saved the day for Beardsley and perhaps the year for the Spartans. A running, diving catch speared a ball that was drilled to leftcenter field. Had it have dropped in, two runs would have scored and the inning would have continued. “I didn’t think I could catch it,” Guyton said. “I ran as fast as I could. I just happened to be flying through the air and the ball was in my glove.” The ball being right where it was ended the inning and got the Spartans out of a jam. Beardsley went on to finish the game pitching a complete game. He allowed five hits and one walk with six strikeouts. The Spartans won 4-1 and had finally earned their chance to play in the championship game once again. It was almost a year ago to the day that South faced off against the Torrance Tartars in last season’s championship game. It wasn’t long before the Spartans walked off that field after seeing Torrance celebrate an 11-0 victory. Now was their chance to avenge their loss, this time versus Serrano. Unfortunately for South, in stark contrast to their previous game against Sunny Hills, offense was extremely hard to come by. With their ace of the staff on the mound, the Spartans couldn’t muster a run until the seventh inning. Luckily for South, Pingel held the opposition to just one run through six innings of play. The Spartans were able to capitalize on a Serrano throwing error in the seventh and final inning to tie the game just in the nick of time. An errant throw to first base allowed Tanner Thompson to score from third base, thus allowing Sain and the rest of the Spartans to take a deep breath knowing that they were still in the game and still in championship contention. “We were three outs away from losing the ballgame in the top of the seventh inning,” Sain said. “We showed a lot of fight, a lot of courage.” Unfortunately that fight and courage was overshadowed by a ruling from the umpire in the bottom of the seventh inning. With the score tied 1-1, Serrano loaded the bases The Horse That Made History By Adam Serrao There he stood, kicking the dirt around him as adrenaline still pumped through his veins from a job well done. With nostrils flaring and hot breath funneling out from his snout, it almost seemed as if American Pharoah could sprint another full mile-and-a-half with ease as long as it meant a bouquet of roses at the end of it. American Pharoah got his roses. He also made history by doing something that hadn’t been done since Affirmed did it in 1978. Last Saturday afternoon in just 2 minutes, 26.65 seconds, American Pharoah became the 12th horse ever to win the Triple Crown. The short-tailed colt led wire-to-wire in a Belmont Stakes race in which he defeated seven rivals on his way to the sixth fastest time in race history and the horses third win in a row. Before the race had even started, it was clear that trainer Bob Baffert and jockey Victor Espinoza had a special horse on their hands. But this race wasn’t about the trainer or the jockey, it was about the athlete. It was about the horse. “That little horse, he deserved it,” Baffert said. “He’s the one that did it. We were basically just passengers.” Indeed, passengers on a journey that no one had completed in 37 years. Alas, history had been made and American Pharaoh was the one to do it. Espinoza said it best after he crossed the finish line on American Pharaoh’s back. “Wow! Wow!” he exclaimed. There was almost never any doubt. American Pharaoh left all of America shocked in pure amazement. As the anticipation built, all eyes were on American Pharaoh as he entered his block and burst out into a full sprint like a bullet from a gun at the sound of the race’s start. Espinoza quickly maneuvered his way to the inside and had the position that he wanted next to the rail. By just the second turn, the rest of the competition began fading away. This was American Pharaoh’s race to win and he was going to do exactly that. As the horses muscles rippled in the sun and dirt flung out from underneath his hooves, American Pharoah seemed to float on air as he only widened the gap between him and all those who looked to prevent history from happening. “It’s just an amazing feeling that you have when you’re 20 yards from the wire,” Espinoza explained. “And then at the wire I was like, ‘I cannot believe I did it.’” Espinoza didn’t do it; American Pharoah did it. As Baffert said, everyone else was just along for the ride. Hopefully the horse got as much satisfaction, invigoration and sense of accomplishment as all those who participated and looked on. Now it’s time for some perspective. American Pharoah won the race by 5 1/2 lengths. That’s the fourth-largest margin of victory by a horse that has completed the Triple Crown bid. The final quarter-mile of the race is the stretch that usually dashes the dreams of trainers, owners, jockey’s and horses alike. The mile-and-a-half track is the longest track of the three (Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont Stakes) and has proven to be too much for horses in previous years like California Chrome who lost his Triple Crown bid last year on the same track. American Pharoah ran that final quarter-mile in 24.32 seconds. That’s faster than even Secretariat’s time of 25 seconds in 1973. Until last Saturday, 13 other horses since 1979 had come into the Belmont after having already won the first two legs of the Triple Crown. All 13 failed. American Pharoah was lucky number 14. American Pharoah was the only horse in the race to have also run at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but he was no worse for wear. Not only did he still have fresh legs underneath him, but the 90,000 fans at Belmont Park saw that his strapping limbs still had far more strength in them than any of his competitors as the horse kept extending his lead until the very end. “I could tell by the eighth pole that it was going to happen and all I did was just take in the crowd. It was thundering.” The horse with the misspelled name thundered too. He thundered down the track and he thundered his way right into the history books. One of the strongest and fastest horses to ever grace a racetrack has finally ended a 37-year-old drought. He put his trainer, Bob Baffert, and his jockey, Victor Espinoza into the record books as perhaps the best ever at their respective trades. He put the sport of horse-racing back on the map and he may not even be done. The owner of the Triple Crown winner, Ahmed Zayat, says that plans are already underway for the horse to race again in 2015. Surely, American Pharaoh will continue to only see daylight as one of the world’s fastest and strongest horses made history by accomplishing one of the sporting world’s rarest of feats. • See Spartans, page 9


Torrance_061115_FNL_Lorez
To see the actual publication please follow the link above